Leinster SFC final set to attract over 50,000 to Croke Park
Sunday's Leinster SFC final between Louth and Meath in Croke Park is set to attract a bumper crowd in excess of 50,000.
Both counties are reporting significant uptake in tickets ahead of their first provincial decider meeting in 15 years.
That infamous 2010 clash drew a crowd of 48,875 to GAA HQ and the rematch is in line to be the largest for a provincial showdown since the Dublin-Kildare Leinster final of 2017, which recorded an attendance of 66,734.
No provincial final has come close to that figure since then. In 2019, 47,027 watched Dublin trounce Meath to claim a ninth straight Leinster title. The closest to that figure outside Leinster since then was the Tyrone-Down Ulster showdown that same year, which brought 31,912 to Clones before the capacity of the St Tiernach's Park was scaled down following healthy and safety measures.
Saturday evening's Armagh-Donegal Ulster SFC final in the Monaghan town will be a 29,000 sell-out. Tickets for the Clare-Tipperary Munster SHC Round 3 game in Ennis are also in high demand with an anticipated crowd similar to the 20,778 who were in attendance for last month's Cork game.
No tickets are currently available on public sale for Sunday week's Limerick-Cork Munster SHC Round 4 game in TUS Gaelic Grounds, which is expected to reach the stadium's 41,000 capacity.
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Irish Daily Mirror
4 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Cullen retains Prendergast at but with a safety net beside him and on the bench
Leo Cullen has backed Sam Prendergast to recover the form that had the out-half as a potential Lions ignoring his semi-final place-kicking meltdown - missing five from eight semi-final attempts at goal - put him in to start against the Bulls in the URC Grand Final at Croke Park Prendergast puts a moratorium on what's been a lively debate as to what is best for Leinster in the short-term and best for Leinster in the longer term as they look to win a first trophy in four is all very well coaches and pundits claiming Leinster are the best club in the rugby-verse, the one with the best pathways and Academy but if those very coaches are repeatedly walking off with the silverware and the pundits are building plinths to be toppled over, it stands for very dominated their first two Champions Cup knockout games, keeping successive teams scoreless, but would lose to Northampton in the they have also dominated their two URC knockout games, neither Scarlets nor Glasgow - despite Prendergast's mis-fire - causing them any real problems., They need to win just this one to take the trophy.A backdrop against which Cullen has put his faith in Prendergast but, calculatedly included Ross Byrne on a five-three bench split as back up, and world class All Black Jordie Barrett at no12, a cool head if hope is that with Jack Conan's leadership at no8, Jamison Gibson-Park at no9 and Prendergast, Barrett at 10-12, there is enough experience and leadership for the collective, a lot of whom have never won a trophy with Leinster, to get over the Cullen: "You want to go out and do your best on any given day and not look too much at the outcome part but, unfortunately, the reality is once you get closer to something that's what people tend to look at and they can quite often trip themselves up."So making sure we have the right mindset, focus on playing well is important because that's the bit we can control, the outcome and some of the other variables, we can't control those."Bulls will test us in lots of different ways, so in making sure we have a good plan to be able to deal with the technical tactical parts is on part and then there's the mindset part of that as well."There's tons of experience in the group but Bulls have lots of experience as well, so we must ensure we go out and play our best game in a final."Barrett is no stranger to the big occasion.'We're very lucky to have Jordie, he has hopefully added in lots of different ways to the group because at the end of the day we're a tiny country in terms of playing population and we're up against a juggernaut team who we would have watched play Super Rugby and dismantle teams over the years so we know we're in for a serious bloody challenge."At which point Cullen dials up the underdog complex, little ol' Ireland against the mighty South African payload."People talk about resources and all of that, we're producing players. You go to South Africa, they're a people of what, 64m people? We're a country of how many people, 8m? Where does rugby sit in terms of sport, fourth. In South Africa it's no1 or it's close to no 1.'In terms of the rugby-playing population, what would they have? 12 times the amount of players we have registered, maybe 15 times? We're a drop in the ocean in terms of what we're up against."When we get the opportunity to bring in a player such as Jordie, it's fantastic to be able to do that but it's off the back of all the support we actually get."It gets reinvested into the group ultimately because you can only bring so many players in because part of our job spec is to produce players to play for Ireland."Something Leinster have spectacularly good at, they have 13 players going on the 2025 Lions Tour and another 12 touring with Ireland this is enough for the bookies to have installed Leinster as huge favourites and prompting the questions as to why there are so many doubters and, in turn, why they have failed to get over the line since 2021. 'We know we've a serious challenge on our hands," shrugs (v Bulls, Croke Park, 5pm, Saturday, TG4, SuperSport, Premier Sports, Flo Rugby & Jimmy O'Brien, Tommy O'Brien, Garry Ringrose, Jordie Barrett, James Lowe, Sam Prendergast, Jamison Gibson-Park, Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Thomas Clarkson, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan, Ryan Baird, Josh van der Flier, Jack Conan (CAPT)Replacements: Rónan Kelleher, Jack Boyle, Rabah Slimani, RG Snyman, Max Deegan, Luke McGrath, Ross Byrne, Jamie OsborneVodacom Bulls: Willie le Roux, Canon Moodie, David Kriel, Harold Vorster, Sebastian de Klerk, Johan Goosen, Embrose Papier, Jan-hendrik Wessels, Johan Grobbelaar, Wilco Louw, Cobus Wiese, JF van Heerden, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje (CAPT), Marcell CoetzeeReplacements: Akker van der Merwe, Alulutho Tshakweni, Mornay Smith, Jannes Kirsten, Nizaam Carr, Zak Burger, Keagan Johannes, Devon WilliamsReferee: Andrea Piardi (FIR, 55th league game). VERDICT: Leinster to win, justify favouritism and have a handy last quarter against a weak Bulls bench
Irish Examiner
4 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
McDonnell expects 'eager' Armagh to deliver despite rotation
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Irish Daily Mirror
6 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Real story behind URC final attendance figures at Croke Park will surprise you
There are a variety of people who claim to have coined the phrase 'What if they gave a war and nobody came' and, indeed Pat Boone of Ain't That a Shame fame, had an absolutely awful single of the same it's the URC who are laughing all the to the bank and predicting a 42,000-plus attendance at Croke Park for a match without 'away' fans and for which the tickets only went on sale last a minor victory for that idea that 'destination' finals are not good for sport, that is picking a city at the start of season and which was used by the URC advantage is the event is on sale for eight months, the disadvantage is you could pick a northern hemisphere venue and get two South African teams and league's current MO is to allow the side with the highest league position once the finalists are known - and they were not known until last Saturday. Leinster had nominated Croke Park at the beginning of the season as the RDS is being rebuilt and, at the time, the FAI had reserved this weekend at The estimates that the URC Grand final would attract as little as 12,000 were a long way wide of the mark and as evidence that the lower bowl was not enough to cater for the demand emerged on Wednesday, a section of the Upper Cusack was URC did not have a Grand Final between 2004 and 2009. The next phase, merit-based finals from 2010-14, saw just one passing 20,000, namely Munster vs Leinster in 2011 at Thomond 2015-19 destination finals, at a time when there were no South African club involved in the league, got past 40,000 on three ocassions on the back of getting it 'right'. The Aviva hosted Munster vs Scarlets (47,556) in 2017 and Leinster vs Scarlets (46,092) in 2018 before Glasgow hosted Glasgow vs Leinster (47,128) in 2020 and 2021 finals were played behind closed doors because of Covid restrictions while, more recently, there was 31,000 in Cape Town for all the all-South African Stormers vs Bulls, a record 53,244 in Cape Town for the All-South African Bulls vs Stormers, and 50,388 in Pretoria for Bulls vs average URC attendance is 12,000, while their average for the season which included an 80,000 Munster Croke Park sell-out and the Champions Cup games, is 32, disappointing semi-final attendance of 15,762 was taken in the light of Ireland playing a soccer match against Senegal the previous Thursday and attracting 32,478. The URC, who are only expecting a small number of UK-based Bulls fans and very few foreign-based neutrals, are privately delighted to be pushing 43, lessons are being learned and there is an announcement in the offing that the gap between the semi-finals and the final will be stretched to two week to allow fans more time to plan trips. It's not too late to go to today's match either and tickets are as cheap as €20 for Hill 16.
